From Coldwar Communism to the Global Emancipatory Movement. Itinerary of a Long-Distance Internationalist

295 Pages·2014·2.726 MB·English

by  Peter Waterman

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267924967
FROM COLDWAR COMMUNISM TO THE GLOBAL
EMANCIPATORY MOVEMENT: Itinerary of a
Long-Distance...
Book · November 2014
DOI: 10.13140/2.1.4862.6885
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From Coldwar Communism to the Global Emancipatory Movement
Itinerary of a Long-Distance Internationalist
Peter Waterman
Cover Designs
By Daniel Waterman [email protected]
The Stalin statue on the front cover is from a photo by the author: 'Liberation Day, Prague, May 8,
1956, was the first time I had seen anyone on the pedestal of the world's largest such monument. Were
they waiting for the oracle to speak? Stalin’s hand was, Napoleon-style, in his greatcoat. Czechs said
he had promised to pay for the statue, but that when he heard the cost, he kept his hand on his wallet'.
The Book in Pictures
An online book of captioned photos and other illustrations, is being planned, under the title The
Itinerary of a Long-Distance Internationalist Illustrated. This will consist mostly of my own photos.
And it will be structured according to the chapters of the present book. Until it appears, information
can be obtained from [email protected].
License
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative
Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. To view a copy of this licence, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171
Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California 94105, USA.

This e-book was produced in 2014 by

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Some previews…
Helena Sheehan
This autobiography crosses countries and continents. It spans decades. It traverses the places and
traces the times through one life and the lives intersecting this life. It does so grounded in a healthy
dialectic between self and world, revealing much about growing up in a Communist household in the
nineteen fourties-fifties and participating in the World Social Forums in the two thousands, as well as
a myriad of movements and events, people and places, attitudes and ideologies along the way from the
one to the other. The account of Prague in 1968 is especially fascinating. Peter Waterman was too
implicated to be Zelig but too peripheral to be Dubček. It is a view from a particular focal length that
is unusual in the historical discourse on this seminal turn of events. The book is a lively account of a
life vigorously lived. It is critical and self-critical in a way that many memoirs are not. Read it.
[Helena Sheehan is Professor Emerita of Dublin City University, where she taught philosophy, science
and the media, on which she has published extensively. Born in the USA, she became a nun, was
drawn to Marxism and Communism, has traveled widely, lived and taught in Russia and South Africa.
She has published a presentation on the ‘International Lenin School’, and has also written
autobiographically.]
Flavia Braga Vieira
Peter Waterman here presents a wider public with his ‘Itinerary of a Long-Distance Internationalist’.
The book is above all a gift and a tribute to all former militants who have devoted their lives, as Peter
has, to the cause of labour and communist internationalism. Many of their struggles are revealed in
the narrative of this particular life. The book is also a gift to those studying previous generations who
have tried to uncover the forms of internationalism and contradictions amongst workers. Many of
their problems and doubts can be clarified by reading this account. The book is also an inspiring gift
to young scholars and activists who, like me, seek to understand and extend international links ‘from
below’ in the contemporary world. The autobiography of Peter Waterman is very important for
internationalist militants from all over the globe. It is required reading for all who believe in a world
without borders, where freedom and equality can be creative and fundamental parts of the lives of men
and women.
[Flavia Braga Vieira is author of a Brazilian book on the Via Campesina network in the light of
internationalism (Braga Viera 2010), continues to write on internationalism. She teaches at the
Federal University, Rio de Janeiro, and is active in university and other social movements.]
Boaventura de Sousa Santos
This is an admirable memoir of an intellectual-activist who has lived most intensely the progressive
struggles of the last sixty years of world history. Yes, world history, because despite being born in
Europe, Peter, in the best tradition of Communist internationalism, participated in struggles and
movements, not only in Central and Eastern Europe, but also in Africa and most recently in Latin
America. But this is much more than a memoir. It is so well documented that, in this personal
experience, there are reflected some of the most decisive events of contemporary history. It is a living
history book. But even more than this, this book is so clearly and vividly written that at times it reads
like the script for an imaginary documentary of our times. This book should be read by all concerned
with our recent history in order to get a much more complex inside view of what happened while it was
happening. In particular it should be read by the youth in order to get a close-up of the difficulties and
possibilities in building another possible world at a time where there existed a vibrant international
communist movement. It is up to such youth to evaluate whether difficulties are now less or more
daunting, the possibilities less or more luminous.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Professor of Sociology, University of Coimbra, Portugal and has
positions at several other universities. He has published widely on law, the World Social Forum and
the global justice and solidarity movement, more recently on If God was a Human Rights Activist
(Portuguese, Spanish) and Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide (2014)
Some Inspirations…
William Morris
I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for
comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other
men have to fight for what they meant under another name.
A Dream of John Ball, 1886
Lucio Magri
I am, then, a living private archive, in storage. For a Communist, isolation is the gravest of sins,
which must be accounted for to others and to oneself. But if sin – forgive this ironic concession to the
fashion and expediency that today moves so many to a sudden search for God – opens the way of the
Lord, isolation might help in approaching the tasks outlined here, by allowing for a certain useful
detachment. I cannot claim ‘I was not there’, ‘I did not know’. In fact I said one or two things when it
was inconvenient, and so now have the freedom to defend what should not be disowned, and to ask
myself what could have been done, or might yet be done, beyond the bric-a-brac of everyday politics.
It is not true that the past – of Communists, or of anyone else – was entirely predetermined; just as it
is not true that the future is wholly in the hands of the young who are yet to come. The old mole
continues to dig, but he is blind and does not know where he is coming from or going to; he digs in
circles. And those who cannot or will not trust to Providence must do their best to understand him, and
by doing so help him on his way.
‘The Tailor of Ulm’, New Left Review, No. 51, May-June, 2008.
Edward Said
[T]here is something fundamentally unsettling about intellectuals who have neither offices to protect
nor territory to consolidate and guard; self irony is therefore more frequent than pomposity,
directness more than hemming and hawing. But there is no dodging the inescapable reality that such
representations by intellectuals will neither make them friends in high places nor win them official
honours. It is a lonely condition, yes, but it is always better than a gregarious tolerance for the way
things are.
(cited John Saul, 2009: 423)
Hillel
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?
And if I am only for myself, then what am I?
And if not now, when?
(from Hillel the Elder, 110 BC, died 7 AD, and used as a book title by Primo Levi (1995))
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
PART 1 (1936-69): LIVING AN OLD RED INTERNATIONALISM
1. Britain, 1936-55: Growing up Jewish, Middle-Class, Communist and Internationalist
• Point of departure
• East End, my (parental) cradle
• Alec, the East-European, extrovert and talmudic one
• Ray, the introspective, moderate English one
• Growing up Communist and internationalist
• The Young Communist League, 1951: ‘All My Life and All My Strength’
• The Berlin Youth Festival, 1951: tearing the curtain, embracing the enemy
• School is Dead! Long Live … er … College?
• Bucharest Youth Festival, 1953: failing to humanise Communism
• Failing to revolutionise Adrienne
• Training to become a journalist (revolutionary)
• Dazzling international, Communist and sexual vistas.
2. Czechoslovakia 1955-58: From Agitator to Agent
• The International Union of Students: vanguard with a decreasing rearguard
• World Student News: a hopeless proposition?
• Primitive socialism their example
Sad country
The (counter) revolution
• Living under socialism (Národní Podnik)
• The freedom of the mountains
• Colleagues, friends, comrades and a lover
The not-very-cosmopolitan Brits
The Norwegian babes-in-the-woods
The Icelanders, ebullient and reserved
The romantic Italian
The overcoated Soviet
The bouncing Czech
The serious Japanese